Sound of Music’s Von Trapp offers to sing at EPAC churches

Several recent television programs have celebrated the 50th anniversary of the film The Sound of Music, which burst onto theater screens in 1965 and won the hearts of fans worldwide. Even the recent Academy Awards TV broadcast featured an impressive performance by popular singer Lady Gaga and the appearance of Sound of Music star Julie Andrews. Now vocalist Elisabeth von Trapp, the granddaughter of Maria and Baron von Trapp, whose story inspired that film, is coming to Eastern Pennsylvania and offering to perform in some of our churches.

Von Trapp will perform in our area over the next 13 months. “Over the past several years she has brought her music to dozens of Methodist churches throughout the eastern United States,” according to Ed Hall of Von Trapp Music, located in Waitsfield, Vermont. “Singing professionally since childhood (when she was one of the Von Trapp Singers) Elisabeth has enthralled audiences from European cathedrals to Washington D.C.’s National Cathedral, the Kennedy Center and hundreds of performance halls and churches across the United States.”

Her religious program reportedly includes sacred music extending from Gregorian chants, songs by 12th century mystic Hildegarde of Bingen, early American hymns, spirituals and psalms set to her own compositions. Read more on her Website: http://elisabethvontrapp.com.

Hall says there is no fee for Von Trapp’s church performances. She only requests that churches take up a collection for her company during the performance and allow copies of her CDs to be sold. “We donate 10 percent of the collection plate as well as 10 percent of our CD sales to the host church,” writes Hall. Contact him at Von Trapp Music PO Box 827, Waitsfield, VT 05673. Phone: 802-496-3171 or 802-272-1928 (cell). E-mail: vtm@madriver.com.

Note: Von Trapp, who came to Merion, Pa., as a young immigrant from Austria and lived in Reading as a child, will perform in our area over the next 14 months. Her past performances venues here have included Tindley Temple UMC in Philadelphia and Mount Gretna UMC.